Empty Lands
by Kamil the Awesome
Summary: The discovery of a derelict ship leads to nightmare-ish events for the colonists of BVL-334.


A/N: I wrote part of this during free write in my creative writing class one day, but started to flesh out the idea and add an ending. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Check my profile.

Empty Lands

Year 2783

A cloud of dust rolled over the barren, rocky soil of BVL-334. A small dune buggy-like vehicle passed through the western gates of a small community. Four men with oxygen masks walked up to the slowing vehicle, their plasma rifles at the ready. A man in his late thirty's jumped out, a rifle slung over his back and an oxygen mask over his face. One of the four walked up to the newcomer.

"What did you find, Jonathan?" He asked. His glazed, gray eyes stared out from the plastic mask. "We didn't expect you for another two hours."

"More useless dirt," Jonathan replied, kicking at the ground beneath him, "and some U-shaped object. Captain." Sarcasm and hatred drooled from his last word. The Captain scowled.

"So why did you return instead of investigating it?" One of the men raised his weapon to meet Jonathan's forehead, waiting for a signal.

"I found a corpse during the investigation that died of a mysterious death. Its chest had been burst open…from within." His green eyes came up to the Captain's grays. "I've never seen or heard of anything similar to this. I returned to get two or three security teams so we can investigate further. It be suicide for a single person to investigate, and maybe we could call down some…marines to assist us." The group scowled at him. The Company considered this colony to be very important and went to great lengths to hide it from others.

"But why security teams? Shouldn't you take a science team, dipwad?" Jonathan scrunched his face at the comment. 'Science teams are completely useless', he thought.

"Because it would be better to take security teams. In case we get attacked by anything we can fight back." Jonathan replied.

"…Fine Jonathan. I'll let you go off with a bunch of my men and go search some derelict. I'll send them out to the site at 0700 tomorrow. Coordinates?" He held out his hand, but just received laughter in return.

"You thought I'd just give them over like that? You know my past better than anyone here. I'll lead them there. We'll only send a transmission back to base in the incident of attack involving whatever caused that corpse. That's part of the…deal." The Captain's teeth gritted together.

Lunging towards Jonathan, he grabbed the others collar. "Ok, I'll let you do it except I'm coming with you." He leaned in closer. "I don't want a repeat of the _Nostromo_ here. Don't mess up this operation." The four who had came out left, heading for the colony's main building. Jonathan just remained there, scrapping at the dirt with his boots. After a few moments, he started for his bunk, ready to collapse upon his bed. Only a few seconds after he left, a pinkish life form fell from the undercarriage of the transport. It splayed around on the ground before flipping over. It then scuttled away towards the nearest barrack.

* * *

It was early for Jonathan when he started out towards the armory for the trip to the U-ship. He was in a daze, given that he never got such little sleep. He wandered down the halls, rubbing his eyes in a useless attempt to get the sleep out of them. And that's when he heard the scream. Turning on a dime, he sprinted towards the scream, attempting to find the source. Moving from hallway to hallway, he eventually ended up in Barrack C when the scream died down. At this point he slowed down, cautious of whatever was causing the unearthly screams.

"Dammit Jonathan, worried about some poor kid having a bad dream. That's what that scream must've been." He told himself. Just as he was about to start heading back towards the armory, he spotted a trail of blood. One end went into a tiny pipe that his arm couldn't fit into while the other end came from a doorway. He hesitantly opened the door, just to have to turn his eyes away from the sight before him.

Lying upon the bed was the body of an engineer, his chest having been opened from the inside. Ribs were pointed in inhuman directions and blood slowly poured out. Other pieces of gore spread out along the ceiling and walls. Jonathan turned around, his face white and attempting to hold back the bile pushing up to his mouth. He then ran off, fear slowly encased his mind.

'Maybe this excursion is not the best idea. Maybe whatever caused that…was on that ship?'

* * *

The events leading up to the discovery of that body replayed in his mind as they slowly drove out to the U-ship. With him were 37 armed men, along with the Captain, of course. A giant cloud of dust passed over the moving company, screwing with their vision until it finished passing over them, revealing the U-ship in its crater. Jonathan laughed at the gasps he heard over the COM system connecting the buggies they had. They pulled up to the lip of the crater, letting a few pebbles fall to the base.

"This is as far as we go in these, boys." The Captain's unmistaken voice came over the COM. "From here we'll hike down to the ship. All weapons except plasma cannons are authorized for this expedition." Jon turned the COM off and started to search through his weaponry. A couple of tours with the United States Colonial Marines allowed him to make off with a pulse rifle, flamethrower, and a smart rifle along with as much ammo as he needed. Or as much as it took to hold off a militia the size of George Washington's army back during the Revolutionary War. After a few minutes, he climbed out and turned to the other men. They were equipped with anything you could think off…that the Captain allowed.

Jonathan turned on his mask's COM. "We'll split into three parties, Skylark, Bravo, and Mugler. Skylark will be in charge of keeping anything other than us from leaving the crater. Bravo and Mugler will enter in the central area and then move outward in the two different 'limbs' of the craft. Any questions?" Everybody nodded and they started to move down into the crater.

At the time the Captain had been checking a message that had recently arrived from Ceres. He quickly read it, pondering what exactly happened.

"At 0630, Jonathan Martin was spotted entering Michael Johnson's bunk. After some suspicious activity from this mysterious incident, we sent a group down to check out the situation. It turns out that he had been brutally murdered via his chest being punctured by a pipe-sized object. The strangest part is that it appears to have come from inside his chest. We are starting an investigation into the matter and request that you're party return to base to be questioned." The Captain looked down for a moment before responding.

"We'll be returning once some preliminary stuff have been done. Until then, Captain out." He quickly grabbed some weaponry before starting down for where the rest had gone, but before he could a mysterious growl came from behind. He turned to find only glowing, silver teeth behind him. And then they attacked him.

The teams had reached the base of the crater almost an hour after starting. The trek down had been a cautious one, given the stuff they were packing in. Some of the men had been asking questions, including where the Captain was. Even Jonathan was having his doubts, but they had made it this far. They were going to continue in and discover how and for what purpose this craft came to the rock they were on.

"Major, Skylark has reported a massing of unknown creatures on the southeast edge of the rim. They're requesting if they can fire upon them." Jonathan rolled his eyes from the name. He never cared for military ranks, although that's what it was when he had left.

"Not until a science team can give us knowledge on the creatures. They can only attack for self-defense, ok?" The man nodded his head and repeated the message to those who had asked. They then started to move into the ship, their eyes scanning for movement of any kind. After a few minutes, they reached the corpse that Jonathan had found on his first trip.

"This will be our base of operations during this expedition, ok? You'll report back on a five-minute base unless it's vital. Also try to map out the area for when the science teams wish to come out here and investigate for their selves." They all nodded to what he said and started on their ways. Parties of 8 men went each direction while the remainder help set up the base. Around three minutes since they had left, Bravo had sent a message.

"We've found eggs, sir. One appears to be open and…oh my…one of them is opening right now…we're detecting movement. What the? Some sort of crab thing leapt out and has attached itself to Nathan's face. Requesting authorization to remove the parasite?"

Jonathan breathed deeply. "Authorization allowed. Proceed with caution and burn any more eggs you come across. I don't need any containment procedures broken over some parasite."

"Ok sir. Beginning the procedure. Turn on that buzz saw, Jim." Eh listened to the whirling of the blade as it started to go and touch one of the limbs. Then he heard some cursing. "Fucking damn thing has acid for blood. Should we attempt to save him sir?"

"No." Jonathan looked to the body. "He's dead to us. Best to burn the body and return to base. I think we'll be leaving soon."

"Ok sir. Bravo out." Jonathan turned to those who were in Mugler and had stayed behind.

"Be ready to head out at any point, got it?" They all nodded as he turned on the COM.

"Mugler, this is command. Respond." The COM was quiet.

"Mugler, this is command. Respond." It remained quiet. He looked over to the rest of Mugler.

"Mugler, this is command. Respond." When he received no response that time, he turned to the men. "You four go find the rest of your party. If they have parasites on their faces, burn them along with any unopened eggs." They all nodded and ran off, ready to go through with the orders. At that time, Bravo returned. Jonathan turned around to them. "Be ready to leave this dump. Once Mugler returns, we'll be off for the colony. I'll make sure to have that nuclear core ready to go off at any moment."

One of them looked at Jonathan, worry written over his face. "Are you sure sir?"

"Yes I am, private. Yes I am. I've been ready to die for a long time now, it seems." He looked at the ground. "That's all I was meant for. To die in some wasteland." Voices came over the COM.

"We've found Bravo sir. They are currently burning as we speak. One of us has a nuclear bomb and is ready to use it to slag this…place. Any objections, Jonathan?" Tears started to form at the corners of Jonathan's eyes.

"You may. Set it for 10 minutes and wait for my mark. That should be long enough."

"Yes sir, and good luck out there. We'll guard it until our final breaths." The COM ended abruptly.

Jonathan turned to the 11 men he had left. "We've got to run faster than the wind if we're gonna get out of here. Once we're to the incline they'll start the countdown. Move out!" They all grabbed the equipment they could get out and started running towards the edge of the crater. As they did this, Jon opened a COM channel to Skylark.

"You still alive Skylark?"

"Yes we are sir. We've been forced back to the buggies and have found the Captain, dead. We're currently using plasma cannons to keep them at bay, but I don't know how long we can hold them off."

"That's fine. Just be ready to get us at any point." He quickly changed channels. "Mark."

"You have 10 minutes left sir." The channel faded away and Jonathan switched back to Skylark.

"We've got 10 minutes to get out of this hell hole before it goes nuclear, so that should tell you what type of urgency should be used by you fools." As he continued up the craters face, small rocks kept coming down. Once about half way up, the first buggy showed up.

"Get on boys! We're here to save you from those black things with acid blood and silver teeth! Only three rides though, so hurry!" The closest four climbed in and started to assist with the skirmish erupting around them. The aliens were charging the buggies while the humans fought back, sending waves of lead, explosives and plasma at the charging monsters. During the fighting Jonathan got a couple of good looks at the creatures. They had black chitin for skin, acting like armor. Their heads were elongated and were very similar to bananas in shape. Their sharp teeth were silver and the easiest part to see. It turned out that instead of a tongue, these insults to God had an inner mouth they could fire out like a stick from a hole. But it was their tales that caused the most damage to them.

And then their blood was a fast acting acid that just happened to be flammable, to his joy. As he slowly moved to the buggies, he watched more and more of them being shot with a couple of pistol bullets and then being set on fire. At this point they'd run around similar to chickens that had their head cut off and would soon explode like popcorn. After what seemed like an eternity, he was pulled onto one of the buggies while blasting through a couple of aliens.

"We got everyone. Let's blow this popsicle stand." The three buggies drove off as the nuclear bomb went off, destroying the ship and the attacking aliens.

* * *

It was twilight when they got home and the colony reminded Jonathan of the ghost towns you'd see in some westerns. Once to the main building, they all got out, looking around.

"Where is everyone?" One of the men asked? Another decided to answer in a rhetoric tone.

"They're just playing hide and seek you know. Common military practice."

Jonathan just rolled his eyes. "This is not the time for bickering. Those from Skylark, head to the nuclear power plant and prepare to cause a meltdown. I want Bravo to secure the landing pad while I'm going to communications. I'll get some marines to come pick us up from the other colony. We should make it to there in a couple of days." Everyone nodded before moving to his or her next post. Jonathan started for the communication deck, just above their current position.

He wandered the dark halls, letting his memory lead him. He was almost there when the hissing began. He brought his pulse rifle up to see an alien standing right before him. Before he could open fire, its tail sliced through his right arm, severing it and allowing his scarlet blood to spray everywhere. In those final moments he realized one thing.

In space, nobody can hear you scream.

A/N: yeah, so that's it. Tell me what you think.


End file.
